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Are you ready for CHAS?
Find out what an assessment will actually ask you for — in about three minutes. Free, no account, nothing saved.
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Fifteen of these expire.
Insurance certificates, ISO certificates, your SSIP certificate itself — all dated, all needing to be in date on the day someone checks. HubTrack keeps them in one place with their renewal dates, and tells you before they lapse rather than after.
What CHAS, SSIP and the Common Assessment Standard actually are
SSIP is not a certificate — it is a forum. Its member schemes assess to one shared threshold, 16 core criteria, so a certificate from one is meant to be accepted by the others. That is what “mutual recognition” means, and it is why paying for two is usually waste.
CHAS is one member scheme of several. It is a founder member of SSIP and one of seven Recognised Assessment Bodies for the Common Assessment Standard. The others are Achilles, Compliance Chain, Constructionline, CQMS, SCCS, SMAS Worksafe. If a contractor asked you for “CHAS”, it is worth asking whether any of the others would do — a firm that thinks CHAS is the only door pays more than it needs to.
The Common Assessment Standard is the wider questionnaire. Published by Build UK, free to download, covering ten sections well beyond health and safety: Identity, Financial, Corporate and Professional Standing, Health and Safety, Environmental, Quality, Building Safety, Fairness, Inclusion and Respect, Information Security, Information Management. It is what central government asks for under PPN 03/24. Certification lasts one year and is conditional on keeping time-critical documents in date; audits are either desktop or site-based. Micro-businesses are assessed to a revised standard on certain questions, and may still answer to the full standard if they want to.
The three CHAS tiers, and what each buys
| Tier | From | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| CHAS Standard | £429/yr | Health and safety assessment and SSIP verification |
| CHAS Advanced | £659/yr | SSIP plus the former PAS 91 standard |
| CHAS Elite | £909/yr | The Common Assessment Standard, across 13 risk areas |
All before VAT, all rising with headcount. Prices as published by CHAS, checked 7 August 2026.
The 16 core criteria
Every SSIP member scheme assesses against these. The checker above asks about them in its own words, because what an assessor actually wants is the evidence underneath each one:
- Health & Safety policy and organisation for Health & Safety
- Arrangements
- Competent advice — corporate and construction related
- Training and information
- Individual qualifications and experience
- Monitoring, audit and review
- Workforce involvement
- Accident reporting and enforcement action; follow up investigation
- Sub-contracting / consulting procedures (if applicable)
- Risk assessment leading to a safe system of work
- Co-operating with others and co-ordinating your work with that of other parties
- Welfare provision
- Hazard elimination and risk control (Designers & Principal Designers only)
- Principal Designer duties (Principal Designers only)
- Principal Contractor duties (Principal Contractors only)
- Fleet Operations
Three of them apply only to designers, principal designers and principal contractors, which is why the checker asks what you do before it asks anything else. Firms with fewer than 5 people are assessed proportionately — a sole trader is not expected to produce a corporation’s paperwork.
What changes on 1 November 2026
The Common Assessment Standard moves from Version 5 to Version 6 on 1 November 2026. This checker is pinned to Version 5 of 1 July 2025 and says so on every list it produces. It will be updated when Version 6 publishes.
Questions people ask
What is CHAS, and do I actually need it?
CHAS is a company that assesses contractors' health and safety arrangements and issues a certificate. You need it when a client or main contractor asks for it — it is not a legal requirement. CHAS is one of several schemes that assess to the same shared standard, so if you have been asked for “CHAS” it is worth asking whether any SSIP member scheme would do.
What is the difference between CHAS and SSIP?
SSIP is the forum that sets the shared threshold — sixteen core criteria — and CHAS is one of its member schemes. Member schemes are meant to recognise each other's certificates, which is why holding more than one is usually wasted money.
How much does CHAS cost?
CHAS publishes three tiers, all before VAT and rising with headcount: Standard from £429 a year, Advanced from £659, and Elite from £909. Standard covers the health and safety assessment and SSIP verification; Elite covers the Common Assessment Standard.
What is the Common Assessment Standard?
An industry-agreed question set published by Build UK, covering ten areas including finance, environment, quality, building safety and data protection as well as health and safety. It is assessed by seven Recognised Assessment Bodies, of which CHAS is one, and central government uses it to pre-qualify suppliers under PPN 03/24.
What documents will I be asked for?
It depends on your size, what you do and what certifications you already hold — which is what this checker works out. At health and safety depth, expect a written policy, your arrangements and risk assessments, training records, insurance certificates, and evidence of how you check work on site. The full Common Assessment Standard lists 41 documents, 15 of which have to be kept in date.
Will this tool tell me if I will pass?
No, and be wary of anything that says it will. It tells you what the published question set asks for, against what you have said you hold. The assessment is carried out by a Recognised Assessment Body and only they decide.